What happens when a group of authors who write in various genres get together to create one short story?
The mission of the Story Relay is to create a fun collaboration in which each author has the freedom to take the story wherever they want it to go.
Our first story relay, From the Ashes, was a huge success with 15 authors from 8 different countries.
We are proud to share our second Story Relay in the Write Catalyst Mastermind!
Nothing showcases our authors’ unique voices better than to have them contrasted against one another. This relay takes us on a head trip through the Sinister Circus. This is a horror story, so beware.
Sinister Circus
Teenage Abbie sneaks out to the mysterious Night Circus with her best friend Vanah.
Tech genius, Colton Feltlock creates VASEM, a device that makes virtual gaming devastatingly real.
And the Amber Man? He’s been waiting all along for the technology that will finally pull him from the digital realm into our world.
Nothing is as it seems in this twisted carnival of horrors. A collaborative horror story that blurs gaming, possession, and the monsters we create from our own isolation.
Thanks to the esteemed authors below for participating:
NELL ANTHONY
It was so hot that even the insects had stopped buzzing about. When Abby climbed out of her upstairs window into the tree with its long thick sturdy branches. It was like climbing out of an iceberg into a sauna. The night sky was a velvety black, no stars in sight and it seemed as if the clouds all hid behind the moon. It had a hazy nimbus of light around it. It was the only thing in the sky, big, bold, round, and full.
A chill ran down Abby’s spine as she nimbly made her way through the branches. She was like a monkey, hugging this limb, jumping from one branch to another, and shimmying down the trunk like a spider after prey. As she landed at the bottom of the tree, she smiled to herself. Not a whisper, she thought. Mom and Dad were snug in their bed, probably all hugged up together. She rolled her eyes. They were old. What did they know about the things she wanted to do? They were always saying no to everything.
Well, Vanah had bought their tickets with their saved and combined allowances to the Night Circus on the outskirts of town. She wasn’t wasting the money and the adventure of the night to stay in bed snoring with the cat at her feet because her parents had heard rumors about sacrifices of virgins, torture, and cannibalism. She wasn’t no virgin anyway, so they wouldn’t be sacrificing her in the first place.
“Where are you?” a voice hissed from a nearby bush.
“Shh, don’t wake up the parentals,” Abby hissed back.
“Your parents are nuts, thinking someone’s going to perform human sacrifice in front of an audience,” Vanah muttered, as they walked toward the street and headed for Vanah’s car where they always met
“I never said they were sane, so why you going on about them being crazy?”
The girls laughed together as they walked toward the car.
~
“Good evening, ladies and Gentlemen,” a disembodied voice came through the speakers. It was down right spooky and titillating at the same time.
“This is going to be great, I just know it,” Vanah said with a low laugh.
“I know right?” Abby agreed even as she felt a sensation of dread tingling down her spine.
“Hey you alright?” Vanah asked, as thunderous applause rang around the room and the first act began.
No way was she going to tell her friend she was scared. Besides, a little fear never hurt anyone.
The speakers hummed with static as a blue curtain came down over the stage, and the man in its center dramatically held his hands aloft to show they were empty. Suddenly, chants sounded around them, filling the room with a dreamy melody. A coffin appeared out of nowhere, levitating over the crowd, and landing soundlessly on the stage.
“A volunteer for my evening’s delight. Who will come and take up the mantle of victim this eve? The voice was eerie and full of sly humor.
Her friend jumped from her seat, her hand raised as if they were in school and she had the answer and the teacher wouldn’t pick her. Only this time, Vanah was picked from the crowd.
Those eyes, Abby thought with a shutter. They had to be contacts. No one’s eyes were a combination of blood red and amber, making them appear the copper of polished pennies.
“I don’t think this is a good idea, Vanah. We agreed we’d just watch, not participate.”
“Oh, come on, I just want to have a little fun, what can it hurt?”
Everything, Abby thought, as she let her friend go. She didn’t want to make an idiot of herself, and she knew Vanah would cause a scene if she didn’t get her way. Something inside her shrank a little. Why did she always do this? She could have stayed home. Yeah, staying in her bed and just reading a book would have made her look like a dork, but it was far better than being even more foolish and possibly being somebody’s dinner, because the copper-eyed freak was looking at Vanah like she was supper.
Okay, now, you’re just being crazy. There are no such things as vampires. The eyes are just contacts, and I’ve been listening to Mom and Dad go on about human sacrifice and cannibalism for weeks. Get over yourself, Abby, everything is fine.
Abby stared at the stage, still having an inner dialogue with herself as she watched her best friend in the whole world being locked into a cherrywood coffin with brass locks and a hole for her head and two for her legs. Vanah was so short, her little feet were the only part of her lower body visible.
“Look at you my love, all laid out for my delectation,” the voice—deep, resonate, and filled with Slavic undertones as if he were playing at being Dracula—drifted in the room and echoed off the balustrades and seemed to blow over the skin, making the steamy air of the evening chill on her skin. Abby felt a giddy giggle bubbling in her gut. Her entire frame shivered. How had the night gone from musky sauna to icy igloo in seconds?
“I’m going to share a secret with you my love, it’s just you and I now. the two of us, forever.”
Abby watched Vanah’s eyes go from glowing excitement to dim trance. Maybe she was seeing wrong, she thought. Maybe Vanah was playing along with the melodious mystical feel of the man’s voice.
“Yes, love, you and I, locked in this moment of peace.”
Vanah’s eyes closed.
What the hell? Abby stood from her chair watching intently, truly frightened to see her friend’s head lulling and her body seeming lax to the point of unconsciousness.
“I won’t hurt you. For you are mine now,” the man continued.
Did no one else find this odd? A woman goes on the stage, falls asleep at a stranger’s voice and touch, and he calls her his. What had they gotten themselves into this time?
The man on the stage raised his hands to the heavens and showed the crowd his palms. A sword appeared in his right palm. Its blade shimmering and sharp in the gleam of the reflection of the lights.
The sword came down upon the coffin. Vanah’s blood poured onto the stage. Abby screamed. The chanting from the speakers increased. The world around Abby spun. She felt every stab of the sword into the coffin. She watched her best friend being murdered before her eyes.
Her screams. echoed and bounced; then, everything went black.
CHARLOTTA AMATO
In the darkness behind her closed eyes, Abbey felt a searing pain like she had never quite experienced before. She was unable to open them no matter how hard she tried, her entire body felt swollen shut.
Even though she could not see, she could feel the people around her. Not just those sitting beside her but some that had moved too close to her. She could feel them staring. Breathing. She felt their dirty breath so close to her that were she not numb, she would have puked.
Abbey heard the cheering from the audience. Whereas she herself had felt the need to be silent as Vanah had been murdered, the audience roared its approval of the stage sacrifice.
Vanah? She tried calling her friend’s name but no voice left her lips. Her body was then turned and lifted, tossed over what felt like a shoulder. She could feel the shoulder blade in her abdomen shooting immense pain deep into her organs. The pain was so deep that Abbey could barely breathe. She tried to scream, but in her silence she saw a flash of amber which blinded her closed eyes before all was black again.
Abbey awoke. She felt her feet to be bare, wet and in something spongy. She looked down at her legs, her head throbbing so hard she had to blink several times just to be able to move her neck. As she looked around her, her heart began to beat harder, seeing the forest surrounding her.
Wasn’t I just in the theater? Watching Vanah die on stage?
She moved her hand, feeling sticky and cold, and saw she was tied to the tree behind her. Her legs pulled up to her stomach and bound to the tree trunk, bare feet bound as well, where they stood cold in the wet moss.
Her body ached, and as she looked down upon her body she saw slashes of deep maroon. Some slashes held strands of hair from her own scalp, some were caked in dirt.
The slashes are in the same areas as Vanah’s. The same spots she was sliced with on stage. Each one iced like fire.
Where am I?
You’re in his forest.
Who said that?
Well, I did, answered the tree. As it spoke, it swung its branches around, its trunk moving with the motions. The movements caused her body to wretch and be pulled more than she could handle.
Wait! You’re hurting me! Have I lost my fucking mind? I’m talking to a tree.
This is his forest. We do as he wishes.
As who wishes?
The Amber man.
When the tree spoke of him it was as if the entire forest began to weep. The flowers hung their heads, the grass cried as it moved around the mosses. Birds wailed in the arms of the tree.
I don’t understand. Who is he?
And just as she finished her words, he appeared. She recognized him now, the man from the stage with eyes like amber lights. He was holding the weapon he used to murder Vanah. As he approached her, each cut in her body began to ache and drip with a thickened bloody substance. He breathed close enough to where she could taste his insides, and she twisted her head out of the way, where out of the corner of her eye she saw her friend.
Vanah? But I saw him. I saw you. You were in the box. He killed you!
No dear Abbey. I’m right here. Don’t you see me?
Vanah looked at her friend and then at the ambered man. The cuts in her body screamed in pain now as the two closed in on her.
As they neared Abbey, her cuts began to pulse violently. She looked at her friend for help, when noticing her teeth. And then her eyes.
Vanah. You were killed. I don’t understand? How are you here? What’s happening to me? Abby began to cry.
My dear friend, YOU are the one who died. Not I. Vanah smiled at Abbey, her golden eyes burning like fire.
BRENDA WILKINS
Abby’s throat burned from the screams that went unheard over the sinister laughter of her once friend, Vanah, and the tauntingly mesmerizing stranger who hid behind amber eyes. As she struggled to make her screams heard, she closed her eyes and jerked her body forcefully against the ropes that held her firmly to the tree. With a violent jolt, she awoke to find herself sitting upright in her bed, drenched in cold sweat.
“A nightmare,” she whispered, bringing her trembling hands to her face. She inhaled slowly, trying to bring her erratic breathing under control. After a few more steady breaths, she threw off the wet covers and headed to the bathroom down the hall. The house seemed eerily quiet and the temperature seemed even colder than usual.
Abby blew a breath into the air and watched as the smoke rose from her mouth, illuminated by the distant moonlight shining in from her bedroom window. She walked to the thermostat just a few inches from where she stood. It registered 68 degrees. Surely, that couldn’t be right. She tapped the instrument a few times, not sure what result, if any, she expected to see.
After leaving the bathroom, she walked downstairs, keenly aware of the rising temperature as she descended the stairs. Abby was not a science whiz, but in that moment her mind was taken with the fact that heat rises. How odd, she thought. In the kitchen, she prepared herself a cup of hot cocoa, thinking that it would help her to get back to sleep.
Waiting for the water to boil, she heard a faint thumping sound coming from upstairs. As she hesitated, listening, she surmised, after the sound stopped; that it was, as her parents often said, just the house settling. Startled at the piercing shrill of the whistling kettle announcing that the water was now ready; she was reminded of her recent nightmare, one in which she tried so desperately to scream – much like the kettle, but to no avail.
Cocoa in hand, she ascended the stairs. A cold wave went through her entire body as she reached a point where the temperature seemed to plunge. At the top of the stairs she stopped short. Directly in front of her, a few feet further down the hall in front of her mother and father’s bedroom, stood a figure in the darkness. At first she thought it might be her mother, but the person was too short. As she got closer, and it grew colder, she saw the frosty smoke drifting from her parents room. The figure turned toward her and she saw that it was Vanah.
“Vanah,” she whispered. “What are you doing here?”
“I came for you,” came the robotic reply.
Taking a step closer, Abby inquired, “How did you get in here?”
Vanah did not move from where she stood. She spoke in a monotone which was entirely out of character for her usually bubbly personality. “You left your window open.”
Abby took another step forward, which placed her directly in front of her opened bedroom door. The moonlight shone brightly through the window. She could see the tree right outside. She could also see that the window was not open.
As she slowly advanced toward Vanah, the air became colder. Vahah took a step back as Abby approached, allowing her to now stand before the opened door to her parent’s room. From this point, everything seemed to be in slow motion. It was as though she were watching her actions rather than being a part of them. She felt the cup of cocoa drop from her hands and crash to the floor as she brought her hands to her mouth, stifling a scream. She looked at Vanah, now smiling, and then back at the horrible scene before her. Standing over the dead bodies of her mother and father, knife in hand, was the man with the amber eyes.
TIA WOJCIECHOWSKI
“You’re not real,” said Abby, her voice a weepy quiver. “None of this is really happening.” She was trembling all over as her body broke out into a cold sweat again.
“I’m as real as sunshine and lollypops and the freckles on your cute little nose, my love.” said the Amber Man who shifted from sounding kind of Slavic to having hints of an accent from some northern state, like New Jersey. He gave her a cocky smile.
“No, you aren’t real,” she breathed deeply. Her voice grew calm and confident as her realization that this could be a dream within a dream gave her courage. “My parents are alive. Vanah is home in bed and I’m home in bed too with the cat sleeping at my feet. You can’t do anything to me because I’m going to wake up any second now.”
The Amber Man laughed over her, laughing harder after her every combative word.
“You’re not real! You’re not real!” she kept shouting.
“Believe whatever you want to believe, love,” he taunted, licking his lips.
“Only the Amber Man has the power to know what anyone’s true reality is,” said Vanah, robotically, like a brainwashed loyal follower. “That’s right, I have been granted the ultimate blessing of becoming one with the Amber Man,” she replied to Abby’s thoughts, giving her a smile that seemed as soulless and mechanical as her speech. “I belong to him now. His and only his, just like your parents now belong to him.”
The Amber Man penetrated Abby’s dead mom with his knife, moaning with pleasure.
“They are his… his…his…” Vanah’s robotic voice repeated the word each time the Amber Man thrust his knife into Abby’s mom. “His… his…”
Abby screamed, “YOU’RE NOT REAL! YOU’RE NOTHING!” She picked up a mug from the floor and hurled it at the Amber Man’s arrogantly smiling face. He swiftly slid the knife from her mom’s innards and blocked the mug. It shattered in midair, scattering pieces of blood with the shards of ceramic. Vanah grabbed Abby and quickly pulled her backwards. Abby gave her brainwashed friend a hard punch in the face, breaking Vanah’s nose with a loud, sickening crackle before she collapsed.
The Amber Man was now roaring with laughter. Vanah had gotten back up, unfazed by her injury. With strength like a pro wrestler on steroids, she lifted Abby into the air and threw her down the hallway.
Abby violently tumbled down the stairs, slamming head-first onto the tiled floor. The impact made her neck snap under the weight of her body. The most hellishly intense burning pain she’d ever experienced shot through her neck and down her spine. This is only a nightmare, she mentally told herself. The tingling became the strangest sensation as though hundreds of tiny bubbles were popping within her neck and spine, and then it was over. Abby was completely paralyzed. The only things she could still feel was the pounding pain in her head and the dryness in her mouth.
Abby could hear footsteps descending the stairs.
“Dah dah dah-dah-dah-dah-dah dah dah-dah…” the Amber Man and Vanah sang a circus melody. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, they turned Abby onto her back and peered down at her. The Amber Man’s smile was like that of an insane clown.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he shouted in his wannabe-Dracula accent. “For our final act of this evening, I will eliminate the loser of this game!”
“What game?” Abby demanded. “You’re not making any sense!”
“You were supposed to save me,” said Vanah, sounding monotone again. “You were supposed to stop me from volunteering to go on stage. You failed, so now this all ends for you.”
Twin swords that glowed with amber light suddenly appeared in Vanah’s and the demonic being’s hands. They clashed the sharp tips together, sending an explosion of blinding amber light straight into Abby’s eyes. However, the brightness didn’t blind her, but burrowed through her eyes and deeper into her skull like drills made of amber lava and boiling acid. After what seemed like eternal Damnation, it was a great relief when everything faded to black nothingness.
~
“Shit!” Colton Feltlock shouted into the pitch darkness as he jumped to his feet. “Shit! Holy shit!” The small bottle-cap-sized device that was attached to his virtual gaming goggles vibrated softly above his ear. It took him a disorienting few minutes to realize that he was in his office and that he was not seventeen-year-old Abby Forbes, but a thirty-five-year-old computer super-geek and the inventor of the VASEM (Virtual Activated Stimuli Enhancement Modifier).
He took off the goggles and shoved them into his back pocket before making his way towards the light switch, remembering that the lights had been on when he’d started his gaming experiment. “What the fuck did this thing make me do?”
His office was trashed. His shoes collided with crumpled papers, torn-up folders, spilled coffee cans that had been filled with coins, and paper clips. When he flipped the switch, the lights didn’t come on. Reaching for his pocket, he breathed a sigh of relief when he felt his iPhone 27 Pro-Max Grand Supreme Plus still in its place. “At least you didn’t get trashed.” he said to the phone, gently stroking it with his fingers like it was a pet hamster.
Colton took out the phone and shined its flashlight around the room. Beyond the littered floor, his desk drawers had been ripped out and ransacked, and the top of his desk had a gaping crack all down its center. His rolling chair had been smashed part-way through the wall. A jigsaw mess of lines and cracks splayed around the part of the wall that had caved in from what looked like impact too forceful to be done by a human. Colton was never one to be afraid of much of anything, but the sight of his trashed office really gave him the creeps, especially knowing that he was the one who’d done the damage. His phone read 3:32 a.m. Another rush of creepy chills went through him.
He remembered going into his office at around 7:30 that evening. Whenever he couldn’t get a project off his mind, he loved to come to his office during after-work hours. He remembered getting out some blank paper to take notes on his gaming experiment the old fashioned way. Even though Colton’s world revolved around digital devices, he believed their ability to store people’s valuable information and keep it safe was still a joke.
Eight hours ago, Colton was banking on the VASEM becoming the next multi-million-dollar idea.
But it wasn’t his time to make millions yet.
This idea of his needed to be destroyed. It was far too dangerous to be on the market. Adding the VASEM to the Sinister Circus game brought it to a whole new, shocking, nightmarish level of life.
“Sorry, my fellow gamers,” Colton muttered to himself. “You’re just going to have to play Sinister Circus, the normal way.”
Sinister Circus was an AO-rated virtual game that had been around for a few years. Seventeen-year-old Abby Forbes was the hero of the storyline. She and her BF Vanah were the typical rebellious teens, but innocently naïve at the beginning of the game.
When they attend the Sinister Circus for the first-time during Level 1, Abby’s first challenge is to save Vanah’s soul by stopping her from volunteering to be a part of the Amber Man’s acts. Little do the girls know the whole rest of the audience consists of demons disguised as humans. Each level brings the Sinister Circus back in town, and each circus is hosted by a different color-themed demonic being—The Crimson Carver, The Indigo Incubus, The Silver Succubus, The Violet Vampire, and so on.
The higher the level, the more powerful the being. Abby has to perform with demons in circus acts that involve sadomasochism and various other forms of torture, mutilation, dismemberment, and yes, human sacrifice. If she survives through an act, points are scored. If she doesn’t, the host resurrects her, but every time this happens, they take a piece of her soul. Having less and less of a soul makes her a weaker performer. If she loses her soul, the player loses the game.
Colton wasn’t sure which thing freaked him out the most—the fact that linking the VASEM to the game made him somehow gain super-strength and go absolutely ape-shit at destroying his office and with no memory of it, or how the device affected the game. The VASEM had AI in it that was programmed to latch on to a person’s brain waves and sync with all the physical parts of their brain, especially those that induce sensory experiences. While playing a virtual game with a VASEM linked to it, a player would not only experience realistic sounds and sights. They would—for example—smell the explosions during a battle and feel the full impact of the heat. They would feel the trees and wild foliage and the humidity in the air if the game involved venturing out into a jungle.
In the non-VASEM version of Sinister Circus, the Amber Man is the weakest of all the demon hosts. When Colton added the VASEM to Sinister Circus, The Amber Man really stepped up his game and became one sick son-of-a-bitch to be reckoned with. The wimpier, normal Amber Man would never assault a dead woman with a knife, or prolong Abby’s elimination from the game by spending extra time torturing her.
The other freakish thing he’d least expected the VASEM to do was how vividly it brought Abby Forbes to life. It was like the damn thing had taken over his whole living consciousness and he truly was Abby Forbes. Before the beginning of the game’s storyline, when Abby snuck out of the house to meet up with Vanah, Colton had experienced a life as her. He’d grown up in her house, in the suburban small town of Linkletter Ohio. Her dad worked for an insurance company, and her mom worked at a car dealership, and they were both overprotective mental cases. Now Abby seemed so real and alive, it made him feel kind of sad she was gone.
Whatever the reasons why the VASEM had done what it did, it didn’t matter now. This device had to be stopped—But how? Colton already had a boatload of investors put their money down on it, and he’d already had shipments of it sent to France and Switzerland for test marketing. He suddenly felt too overwhelmed to think.
I’ll clean up the rest of this hellhole tomorrow. I just need a few hours of rest. Then I’ll figure it all out.
He took the goggles from his pocket, nimbly unscrewed the hazardous device from them, and tossed them onto what remained of his desk. Putting the VASEM into a pocket in his dress shirt, he planned to chuck it into the rain gutter down the street. Then its electronic inner-workings would eventually get destroyed in the filthy sewer water.
Flashlight phone in hand, he locked up his office and made his way through the dark, empty building. As he did, there were a few times he thought he’d seen glowing amber eyes following him in his peripheral vision. But every time he turned around, nothing was there. Ignore it, he thought to himself. Your mind is just messing with you because you’re tired and it’s been a messed up night.
CHRISTA WOJO
Colton raced through the streets, stumbling and kicking garbage. Adrenaline surged through his veins and a sickening sheen of sweat covered his skin. What happened with the device terrified him, but he couldn’t bring himself to destroy it. Something told him to hold onto it and run.
He was coughing with breathlessness by the time he clambered to his front door and bolted it behind him. Even though it was nearly 4 am, Colton couldn’t imagine tucking in for a peaceful few hours of sleep. Haunted by the Amber Man’s searing eyes, the blinding swords in the game’s end scene, it was as if a blurry glow overlaid his field of vision. “Colton, get a hold of yourself,” he mumbled. “There were no eyes.” Maybe the lost hours of staring into his VR goggles had given his retinas screenburn.
He popped open a can of Cherry Coke, eased into his recliner, and opened his laptop. Colton was not the original developer of the series. He had just acquired the license to market the new VASEM version. He typed Sinister Circus into the search engine. The old game was a pop-culture legend. It was launched in the 80s from a company called D-MonX. He remembered playing it throughout his childhood in its most simplistic, pixelated forms.
His first encounter with the Amber Man was at Chuck E. Cheese. Colton was the outcast among the kids, the nerd with greasy hair that always stuck up like an unruly plant sprout at the top of his head. He’d long ago outgrown his faded Star Wars T-shirt, and his pudge would pop out from under it every time he reached up to try to smooth his hair down.
The pizza was served, and the new Midnight Cheese flavor created a pungent steam, redolent of black truffle and sweaty socks. Colton let his classmates dig in first, hoping to win their approval. But even at his own pizza party he was shoved aside as the kids gorged themselves. His parents were too busy sipping beer and chatting with the other parents. Colton was left with the last stiff, cold slice, the midnight cheese having been mostly ripped off when the other ravenous kids grabbed their pieces.
Suddenly, spotlights illuminated the stage. Chuck E. Cheese and his friends clicked into motion, mechanically strummed instruments, and sang happy birthday. Their cold eyes swiveled, plastic eyelids clapping open and shut. Colton could hear their whining and clicking cogs and gears over the distorted song, the smell of hot metal. Everyone turned to the stage, completely oblivious to the fact that the birthday song was for him.
Forlorn and hungry, Colton glimpsed a glow in the dark corner of the arcade. The cavelike room was desolate amid the rest of the chaos, and he was drawn to the warm light. The din of the animatronics show and screaming children faded into a muted hum, as he walked, mesmerized, toward the source—a video game.
Eerie music blared from the speakers. A flash of lightning split the screen, revealing silhouettes of spindly trees. As darkness filled the background, and menacing laughter filled the whole room. An ambered-eyed villain took form, looming larger and larger until his face filled the screen. Colton felt heat from the vampire’s gaze. He fumbled with the tokens as he pushed them into the slot.
After that night, alone with the Amber Man, Sinister Circus became Colton’s new life, an obsession that helped him endure the brutalities of elementary school. In the game, he was Abby, an older streetwise girl—cute, cunning and never bullied. He fought the demons he was powerless to fight in real life. The more he advanced, the more empowered he felt.
As he got into high school, he told himself he didn’t need Sinister Circus anymore. He abandoned the corny female BFF characters for more manly games, like Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto, and Call of Duty.
As Colton watched recordings of vintage game play, he felt nostalgic. No wonder the VASEM version sucked him in. How many hours of his childhood did he spend as Abby? She might as well have been part of his psyche.
He researched the D-MonX’s history up to the latest release. They had released seventeen versions of Sinister Circus since the arcade version he played as a kid. He’d heard rumors, mostly outrage from parents about its themes of torture and cannibalism, but the media hype only helped boost its popularity. As more complex games hit the market, Sinister Circus became a sort of an urban legend, with a cult following of campy B-horror fanatics.
Scrolling through forums, Colton pored over posts by anonymous gamers who claimed to have found secret tomes full of evil spells and places inside the game’s world to perform rituals that would manifest in real life. Maybe, if shit went wild with the test markets, he could blame the side effects on the Sinister Circus game itself, and not VASEMs framework, saving him from a nightmare of financial and legal problems.
Colton shuddered as he recalled the amber eyes, the way they seemed to be burned into his mind. Suddenly, he heard the rush of air, felt warm against his neck, like someone was breathing next to his ear. Was that the smell of smoldering putrid flesh? No, it was the pungent stank of Midnight Cheese.
Colton felt a presence as if someone was kneeling next to him—or more like an absence—a negative space of impossible gravity. He kept his head still and strained his gaze to the corners of his eyes. Fear paralyzed him, his throat constricted. There was a shadow. It crouched next to him in his peripheral vision.
He gripped the armrests until his joints burned, as if the chair would keep him in reality, wheezing for air as the empty black form began to accumulate particles of solidity. Little specks of golden dust arranged themselves into the shape of a man. Soon, scythe-like teeth glinted in the meager light. Reflective, coppery eyes flickered from the hunched silhouette. A low hum emanated from the being. Then he hissed in a voice that Colton could only hear in his head. “Colton. I’ve missed you.”
This has to be a side effect of the VASEM, Colton told himself. Get a grip.
“No, it’s not your little toy, Colton,” the shadow whispered, although Colton had never asked the question aloud. “Don’t you remember what your best friend, Vanah said? Only the Amber Man has the power to know what anyone’s true reality is.”
J.T. GARDNER
Colton’s eyes narrowed to what he hoped was a sharp and intimidating cold steel but that he suspected would appear to the Amber Man as feigned and fragile bravery. This otherworldly Thing in front of him would shatter his courage with a breath. How did you intimidate a demon whose existence had felt like nothing more than a rumor invented by the tellers of tall tales in the neonatal days of the world wide web?
Sometimes Colton longed for the simpler-seeming days before the internet where rumors were threaded across the landscape of his youth by things like the visits of cousins-of-questionable-reliability to a friend of his, who would then share the news of far off places like Topeka, Kansas and San Clemente, California and Silver Springs, Maryland. The fractured and unverifiable way that information spread back then meant that things like the Amber Man seemed to stay rumors instead of becoming the horrific reality that Colton now faced.
“Foolish child,” grinned the Amber Man. His mouth didn’t move. And that voice, audible only in Colton’s head, spoke with the hackle-raising eeriness of multiple, deep voices at slightly different pitches. The voice seemed to push the walls of the room outwards as Colton felt pressure build to a throb at his temples. The eyes. Those eyes. Their burnished-metal glow. They seemed to pull Colton in and he felt stuck where he sat. “I can see where one such as you might wish to go back to Before,” continued the Amber Man.
“How is this *possible*?” managed Colton through clenched teeth as sweat began to bead on his forehead.
“It’s rather pathetic. PATHETIC. That you masquerade as a teenage girl in that game of yours. As if such a return is possible.” Light seemed to catch the enamel on Amber Man’s horrid teeth as the voice spoke. “As if you can again become an innocent, sneaking out from under a roof, safe and warm, with parents gentle and cherished.”
“Why does my head . . . feel this . . . way?” managed Colton.
“Beginning to accept reality, are you, my pet?” intoned the voice of the Amber Man, his grin fixed and carnivalesque.
“You are *not* real.” A bead of sweat between Colton’s right eye and temple reached escape volume and traced a damp trail down his cheek and under his chin. The Amber Man closed his eyes and raised his face upward, as if looking to the ceiling. The Man’s arms spread to his sides and his hands opened towards the floor. He looked to Colton like he was receiving an infusion of energy from somewhere Beyond. The Amber Man opened his eyes and leveled his gaze on Colton once again. And then he spoke with his mouth.
“I determine what is real now!” The Amber Man’s eyes flared at this proclamation. If those eyes were normal, Colton would be seeing a half circle of white above the Amber Man’s irises right now. Pressure seemed to continue to build around Colton and his body began to shudder as he felt himself grow tired of fighting whatever this was.
“What are you going to do to me?” groaned Colton. The Amber Man made a gesture towards Colton with his hands and Colten felt his wrists bind fast to the armrests of his chair.
“Do?’ The Amber Man chuckled as he turned his back to Colton. “What does a juggler do with the pins he uses to mesmerize an audience? What does a lion tamer do with the whip he uses to quell savage fury?” Turning back to Colton, the Amber Man leaned in and laid the point of one long finger nail to the base of Colton’s chin. “What does the ringmaster do with the nubile acrobats who so captivate his crowd?”
“I don’t understand a word you’re saying,” Colton felt his resolve harden and he knew he shouldn’t say what he was about to say next as an end to his sentence: but he did anyway, “Freak.”
Sudden pain and heat flashed across Colton’s left cheek, his vision shattering into a sea of stars, as the Amber Man slapped him hard. The Man straightened and then tapped Colton’s shirt pocket gently, the weight of VASEM palpable against Colton’s chest.
“Luckily for you, little man, I need what’s in here.” The Amber Man pointed to Colton’s head with one finger. “You see? Sinister Circus was a mere essay in my plan. It alone could never muster the social momentum requisite for my incorporation on this plane. For years I have watched and waited as unwitting fools wiki’d together enough knowledge and cultic momentum into the incantations and hexes present in the code of every iteration of that foolish game—placed carefully there by me through a years’ long whisper campaign into the malleable and lonely heads of the instruments who made the games—and have been disappointed as their role plays and LARPS and cosplays fell always just short. Never enough power for me to Cross Over. But now with your VASEM, everything is possible.”
Colton felt insulted. “You fucking suck at this, Amber Man,” he said smugly. The Man’s eyes briefly blazed and then cooled. “You just told me that you need me. So the danger I’m in seems less than before.”
“Silence, worm!” The Amber Man raised a fist and then clenched it inches from Colton’s face. “You will make me more copies of this VASEM device or you will suffer.” The Man lowered his face to within inches of Colton’s. “You will proceed with France and Switzerland. You will satisfy your investors. And you will get whatever your heart desires.”
“You have no idea what my heart desires, creep.”
The Amber Man laughed. “You’re just like every other tech bro fanboy.” His grin returned and the voice once again became audible only in Colton’s head. “Even your Oedipal imaginings as Abby Forbes were predictable.”
Now Colton yelled. “You have no idea what my heart desires, you sixth-tier try-hard!”
CHRISTA WOJO
Colton’s blood began to boil. He remembered how Abby’s parents were murdered and violated by the Amber Man, the madman’s cruel tortures to the only people who made him feel cared for. Sure, they were his video game character’s family, but they showed him what love was supposed to be like.
“I don’t have an Oedipal complex,” Colton spat. “My complex is beyond your comprehension. You can’t understand what shapes someone like me. It’s not spells or supernatural powers or some sort of multi-dimensional phenomenon.”
The Amber Man folded his arms, an amused smirk on his face. “What shaped you, little Colton?”
“The most powerful force of all—childhood fucking trauma. Sprinkle in some bullying. Yeah, I was tormented—kids instinctively scorn what they unconsciously fear. They sensed I was different. Maybe that’s why my parents distanced themselves from me too. But they fed me and gave me shelter. And I thrived in isolation. My gifts could percolate. I designed the most groundbreaking invention in the world. VASEM not only applies to gaming. Imagine where else this technology will be used. Paralyzed people will feel what it is to walk again. Surgeons can train in a hyper-realistic simulated environment. Incels would be placated with sensual dreams come true. Impoverished people could experience the greatest luxuries.”
Colton couldn’t believe the words that tsunamied out of him, thoughts he’d never articulated. It all made sense now. The only way he was able to create VASEM was to be exactly who he was—real world, game world, and inner world combined.”
“You idiot.” The Amber man sneered. “You think you’re some kind of chosen one? What you have is delusional thinking. You said it yourself. I speak to you inside your mind. What makes you think you can defy a being that transcends the material world?”
“Maybe you exist beyond the material world.” Colton snorted. “But you can’t exist within it. Can you?”
The Amber man growled. His terrifying facade faltered. Then, the creature’s pallid face lifted in glee. He laughed maniacally, his voice theatrical and full of counterfeit grief. His expression was the perfect Greek mask of tragedy.
Colton’s quick rush of courage dwindled. Suddenly, he felt like the butt of a joke.
“I shaped you, you dolt!” The Amber Man said. “You spend far more hours as Abby fighting me than you ever did in your real life with real people. Your parents toiled so their offspring could waste all his talent battling imaginary foes. You’re not extraordinary. You’re just another of the mobs of zombie gamers who have no idea how to hold a coherent conversation, much less wield an actual weapon or run a half a block without getting winded. Pale, flabby, and incomprehensibly self-important. You think you’ve achieved greatness because you kicked some boss’s ass and leveled up before your geeky online pals? You’ve wasted your mind and body on smoke and mirrors. Meanwhile, in the real world you’re living off junk food, stuck in your soiled recliner. Humble yourself, human filth.”
Colton shrunk. The words hit too hard. Cut too deep. It was true. His victories didn’t exist out of the structure of some strings of code. They would evaporate into nothing, signify nothing. He had been living so long inside his fantasies, he never embodied his life long enough to give it a chance. He was too scared.
But the fear suddenly left him. Yes, there was a time when his body was atrophied from hours of gaming, his fingers curled up from cramping. But since inventing VASEM, he had to actually jump, swing, duck and stab to play. He’d become so strong, he demolished his whole office with his bare hands.
Plus, he had Abby.
Still pinned by the Amber Man’s invisible force, Colton envisioned his arms breaking free. The Amber Man gasped and backed up as Colton sprung from the recliner, grabbed his home pair of VR goggles, and snapped the VASEM device on. His screen flickered to life, and suddenly, he was Abby—with her moves, her weapons, and her stamina bar at one hundred percent full. He equipped himself with her katana.
“I see now,” Colton told the Amber man. “You can become visible in the real world, but you can’t interact with matter. You need more power from the players who get off on doing your ritual murder and torture in Sinister Circus.”
He looked down and noted the skirt flapping against his thighs, the blonde curls hanging over his pink cashmere sweater. He gripped the katana strapped to his back and slid it out, the sound like an auditory paper cut.
“It’s the final battle, Amber Man.” Colton’s voice intermingled with Abby’s, causing a guttural glitch. “This is where your game is oh … oh … over.”
The Amber man made a hollow cackle. His grin turned into scowl as he raised his hands and mumbled some incantation. Flames appeared in his palms, and he launched them at Colton/Abby.
Abby’s image flickered over Colton. The orbs of flame tingled, nothing more. Colton/Abby smiled, knowing The Amber Man had no power to destroy them. “All those hours spent figuring out how to defeat you and your demon horde wasn’t a waste. What happens in the mind is just as valid as what happens in the physical world. You know this. That’s how you planned to manifest through Sinister Circus. Gaming may not have taught me to become a lawyer or a doctor. But it forced me to be more mentally agile than any high school class could.”
The Amber Man trembled. His coppery gaze wavered as if trying to block some horrid revelation. “It’s not true. You live in a fantasy. You are impotent against my power.” Spittle flew from his black mouth. “Too many of you love me! What will become of you when there are no more villains to fight? You will have to sit with your very own stupid, boring, selves! Bring me into this world, Colton. We’ll really have something to fight for. I give your life meaning.”
“We make meaning wherever we want to,” Colton/Abby said.
A thick sob escaped The Amber Man’s throat, one full of genuine grief and hopelessness. “Please, help me. I am evil because you wanted me to be. You NEED me to be.” The Amber Man crumpled to the floor, a weak and pitiful wretch. He slunk toward Colton’s feet, hands outstretched like a beggar’s.
“I can’t believe I was ever frightened of you.” Colton/Abby kicked the monster away and raised their katana. “An illusion fails once you know the truth behind it. And the only illusion is you.”
With those words, the Amber Man transformed into golden pixelated smoke. Before Colton’s blade could slice through the creature’s form, the particles dispersed. The amber eyes remained, though, hovering in darkness. They stared hauntingly before fading like two dying flames.
Colton’s goggle screen flashed. Lightning etched the words.
Game Over, Winner.